From that time ALL births, deaths, and marriages had to be
registered at the local office. These are available for searching at the Glasgow
Genealogy Centre, for all records in the former Strathclyde area, and at the
General Register Office for Scotland, New Registry House, Edinburgh for the
whole of Scotland. If
you are sure of a location of an event and have sufficient information then you
can book a two hour search at a Local Registrars office or for an appropriate
fee obtain a copy of your required Certificate. All searches involve
using your acquired information to work backwards in time.

CHANGES WHICH WOULD
REQUIRE A CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICE RATHER THAN A CHANGE IN THE
LAW

1.
Encourage local authorities to phase out 'parlour registrar' posts when
the present postholders retire or resign, except where a special case
can be made for retention, such as on a remote island.

2. Encourage
local authorities to provide revenue-earning local and family-history
search-centres.

3. Redraw
at 75 years for marriages and 50 years for deaths the line between
'historical' and 'recent' records, drawn for the purpose of making the
earlier indexes and register entries visible on the Internet.

CHANGES FOR WHICH IT
WOULD BE NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE TO SECURE SECONDARY LEGISLATION

(A
STATUTORY INSTRUMENT)

4. Bring
forward changes to require certain additional information to be given
when registering a birth, death or marriage. For instance, recording the
date of birth of parents when registering a birth of their child could
facilitate family history searches at a later date.

CHANGES FOR WHICH IT
WOULD BE NECESSARY OR DESIRABLE TO SECURE PRIMARY LEGISLATION

5. Scottish
Certificates Of No Impediment to be issued only by the GROS in
Edinburgh.

6.
Amend statute to make all registration-district boundaries the same as
those of local authorities.

7.
Amend statute to allow for different premises forming part of the one
registration office to have different opening hours.

8.
Allow the birth of a child occurring anywhere in Scotland to be
registered at any registration office in Scotland.

9. Allow
the death of a person occurring anywhere in Scotland to be registered at
any registration office in Scotland.

10. Retain
the existing requirement for advertising marriages on a local
registration-office notice board but, in addition, augment it with a
list of all forthcoming marriages in Scotland, to be held centrally by
GROS and be available to potential objectors and possibly available to
the public on the GROS website.

11. Local
authorities to be enabled to provide through their registrars ceremonies
analogous to civil marriage but marking other life events. Local
authorities would be expected to ensure the availability of baby-naming
and marriage re-affirmation ceremonies. Other ceremonies, such as civil
funerals, would be discretionary.

12. Supply
automatically and electronically (for an appropriate charge) birth,
death and marriage details already visible publicly on the registers to
all other relevant government bodies, central and local.

13. Allow
informants (for a fee) to be able to ask for wider notification of
births, deaths or marriages to nominated bodies outside the government
sector.

14. Enable
third parties (for a fee) to ask GROS to notify them of the death of a
person if and when it occurs in Scotland.

15. Allow
for the issue of an abbreviated certificate of death, excluding
cause-of-death information, if requested.

16. Once
a no-longer-current register entry is available from GROS as on-line
image, to allow local registrars to issue an authenticated formal
extract on security paper (as distinct from an informal 'information'
copy of the imaged entry).

17. GROS
to supply a change-of-name service at an earlier stage, with widespread
notifications.

18. Allow
persons with Scots connections to record in Scotland's registers births,
deaths and marriages already properly registered in other countries
including England.